Echoing Rod’s calls for better bandwidth in NZ, David Cunliffe just issued a report pointing to NZ’s woeful broadband performance.

The Ministry of Economic Development report comparing New Zealand’s telecommunications performance with other OECD countries uses figures from the organisation that show uptake of broadband in June last year was an unchanged 22nd place out of 30 countries.

"While New Zealand’s performance – especially with broadband internet uptake – has improved in absolute terms, we are in a competitive international race and our relative performance has not improved," Cunliffe said.

I don’t believe the issue is in the fat pipes coming in and out of NZ. There is no question that part of the issue rests in the last mile and provisioning of services. Beyond that, there are a ton of issues.

As a visitor to New Zealand I’m constantly amazed at the appaling public and hotel-based Internet services. I just spent a few days at the high-end Sky Tower in Auckland. Great room. Great food. Crap Internet service. Unlimited high-speed Internet at a good price is more important to me than Hotel food.

If I’d been paying I would have checked-out and gone to another hotel. Anyone charging a day-rate and MPS is nuts.

I then got to the airport early figuring I’d get some work done. Still no Internet service out there.